Today we caught the ferry to Circular Quays with Lucy and her friend Alice joined us for a tour of the Sydney Opera House. Our German tour guide was excellent and gave us an insight into the design and build which was a tortuous lengthy process. This was followed by an excellent taster menu lunch. The ladies went off shopping after lunch and I took a tour of the criminal and justice museum. This highlighted the police involvement in Aboriginal unfair treatment an...

Another beautiful day, Lucy joined us for a day on the beach at Balmoral. We hired a catamaran and had a cracking sail with good winds and a warm sea. We had to dodge dinghies, yachts, ferries and motor boats as we zipped around the large bay because the cats go so fast. There are yachts here with the large green Rolex sticker on them from the recent Sydney Hobart race which is the sister race to the Fastnet. This bought back memories from the Fastnet as we sa...

We dropped Lucy's car at the garage this morning and walked to Cremone Point which is a beautiful promontory with a walk around of about a mile with trees and plants providing shade from the sun which is hot today. We then walked home round the bay's.

After all our trials and tribulations we are starting to get the hang of Sydney. Today we caught the ferry from the bottom of our bay to Circular Quays and then the train to the Australia Museum. They had a fascinating exhibition on the Aztecs. All the human sacrifices they carried out made you glad not to have been an Aztec. The permanent exhibitions were also excellent particularly on the aborigines whose children were taken away to children's homes right up un...

This is the view from our apartment during the day. The weather has cleared up and is lovely with temperatures in the mid 20s. We spent today looking at garages to find one to fix the air conditioning on Lucy's car and doing general car maintenance. This all went fine until we tried to get back home. We managed to take a wrong turn and before we knew it were on the freeway crossing Sydney harbour bridge! It was at this point the battery ran out on the mobile pho...